However, without sounding overly confident, if this were any team other than the Chargers I'd probably be more angry.

I'm going to go with the glass half full approach and say this should serve a good a time as any for Reed to rest up and take a little break to recuperate from all the nagging injuries he's had this season.

Rivers usually kills the Ravens, but the Chargers and himself are playing horrible so I think the Ravens should be OK

Yeah, so either way you slice it, I don't think it's the biggest loss per this game. Rivers typically slices through the Ravens' secondary with Reed, so it shouldn't be a significant change even without Reed. Though given the current state of the Chargers, I don't think there will be much carving done this particular weekend._________________

This is dumb. That hit in the game was a grazing of the helmet at best.

And what I'm more concerned about is the fact that he's suspended now means that he could possibly miss more games down the road if "the NFL" deems his hits to be breaking their rule.

If they are going to enforce things of this nature, than it should be out in the open for all to see. There should be a strict procedure followed that we should have information available to- like what you have with Technical fouls in the NBA. We should've known Reed would be suspended with another hit. This shouldn't just be some bomb that the NFL drops on people. There needs to be a process behind this that can be verified._________________

Funny, Ryan Clark knocks Dennis Pitta out of the game...Nothing...even though he's a known head hunter who's openly stated that he doesn't care about flags.

But then Roger goes back THREE YEARS to track down Ed Reed and suspend him.

This has nothing but filth and conspiracy written all over it.

Yeah, there's no other way I can feel about this. It's not like any of his hits were all that egregious and where did this three strike rule come from? And how do they go back to 2010 and start counting? It's kind of shocking that we didn't have any kind of warning that he had one more illegal hit before a suspension. This is just total BS. We need to just equip all of our offensive players with those Kevlar helmets that Ryan Clark had on and have them lower their helmets into oncoming hits to draw flags. Soon enough it's going to be like the NBA. I hate the direction that the NFL is going.

Considine is listed as his backup on the depth chart at baltimoreravens.com.

We start Ihedigbo without hesitation.

Reed is appealing the suspension so there's still a small chance he plays since it clearly wasn't intentional (it wouldn't have happened if Sanders doesn't lower his head) and like DB said, he has a case. Unless they point at the Harrison scenario to justify it. But even he doesn't play, which is what I am fully expecting, I'm not to worried about the drop off and it will allow him to at least get a little bit of rest._________________2000 ● WORLD CHAMPIONS ● 2012

Reed has had a few of those hard blows to the head that have resulted in flags this season. That has to be the reasoning behind his suspension rather than just the one in the last game. I don't agree with it but I'm not really surprised either.

Ihedigbo has been playing more than Considine recently so I bet he gets the start.

Paul Gardner ‏@paulmgardner
If Ed Reed hit Emmanuel Sanders with his car, and Sanders sued him, it would have cost less than the $423,529 Ed's losing from tackling him._________________XBL GT: SnA ExclusiVe
SteamID: A Flacco Seagulls

Reed has had a few of those hard blows to the head that have resulted in flags this season. That has to be the reasoning behind his suspension rather than just the one in the last game. I don't agree with it but I'm not really surprised either.

Yep this is how I feel. This hit and the Deion Branch hit both just this season, I'm not surprised it came down really -- I hadn't thought about it but when I heard it, I was just like "oh they did it... oh well."_________________

Reed has had a few of those hard blows to the head that have resulted in flags this season. That has to be the reasoning behind his suspension rather than just the one in the last game. I don't agree with it but I'm not really surprised either.

Yep this is how I feel. This hit and the Deion Branch hit both just this season, I'm not surprised it came down really -- I hadn't thought about it but when I heard it, I was just like "oh they did it... oh well."

I'm not going to take this lax stand though. Sure he's had a few of these hits this season. But this most recent hit was incidental contact at best. Plays like this are going to happen all the time in football. The NFL acts like the offensive players are the only ones affected by helmet to helmet blows. If they want to continuously penalize the defense then perhaps running backs shouldn't be allowed to lower their heads for they might be hitting a defenders helmet... or WRs shouldn't be allowed to lower their shoulder to break tackles as lowering the shoulders can mean hitting a tackling defender in the helmet. On many of these incidental plays the contact is coming from football related moves on both sides.

Many of Reed's hits have indeed been incidental. This isn't the same as a defender leading with the forearm and hitting the helmet. Even proper form tackling leaves the helmet exposed to helmet contact... this is WHY we have helmets in the first place.

But furthermore I'm not even upset about this BECAUSE of the ruling. I'm upset because there is no established marker/statistic than we can turn to in these cases to act as a precedent. It's just sort of like the NFL disciplinary committee can play god and suspend players whenever they feel. Who is going to police their results?

And what if Reed has another incidental helmet hit in our final 5 games... does he miss multiple games leading into a playoff run... does he miss playoff games... does he miss a Super Bowl? This ruling is so much bigger than simply a one game suspension heading into the game with the Chargers. This is the NFL having no layer of transparency behind these types of rulings.

This isn't a village tribe culture where a group of elders can build a huge caveman fire, hum a few times, throw their hands into the air, before making their "judgments"... or at least it shouldn't be. This is the NFL, a professional organization. If you show up late at work there is a clear guideline as to how many times you are allowed to do this before disciplinary action is taken. If you get angry at a ref or player in the NBA and receive a technical foul, there is a process of how many times you're allowed that result before further disciplinary action is drawn.

This instance hear is the NFL thinks its cute and shouldn't have to answer to anyone about their policies because of what it is. They like to act like they're a professional organization, but is there a sports organization as bad with enforcing penalties as the NFL? They're honestly so behind the times in this department.

How hard would it be to institute a "personal foul" stat or a "helmet to helmet" stat where perhaps 10 PF penalties lead to a suspension and 4 H2H fouls lead to a suspension.

With such an understanding at least players can appeal individual penalties included in the formula as opposed to appealing suspensions in general. By the time it reaches the suspension point, nobody- including fans, should be caught off guard with what is about to go down. But instead the NFL is more worried about potentially expanding their game overseas than focusing on their actual product and the flaws within it.

Reed has had a few of those hard blows to the head that have resulted in flags this season. That has to be the reasoning behind his suspension rather than just the one in the last game. I don't agree with it but I'm not really surprised either.

Yep this is how I feel. This hit and the Deion Branch hit both just this season, I'm not surprised it came down really -- I hadn't thought about it but when I heard it, I was just like "oh they did it... oh well."

I'm not going to take this lax stand though. Sure he's had a few of these hits this season. But this most recent hit was incidental contact at best. Plays like this are going to happen all the time in football. The NFL acts like the offensive players are the only ones affected by helmet to helmet blows. If they want to continuously penalize the defense then perhaps running backs shouldn't be allowed to lower their heads for they might be hitting a defenders helmet... or WRs shouldn't be allowed to lower their shoulder to break tackles as lowering the shoulders can mean hitting a tackling defender in the helmet. On many of these incidental plays the contact is coming from football related moves on both sides.

Many of Reed's hits have indeed been incidental. This isn't the same as a defender leading with the forearm and hitting the helmet. Even proper form tackling leaves the helmet exposed to helmet contact... this is WHY we have helmets in the first place.

The NFL has shown that intent isn't a factor because then you get into the very subjective portions of deciding which players intended to hit another player in the head and which ones didn't. Fact is, Ed lead with his shoulder/helmet into the head/neck area of a receiver, and this is his second violation this season and I believe 3rd in the last 3 seasons? I think I remember something along the 3 in 3 seasons thing for Harrison when he got suspended, but I could be off. Either way, Ed did it and now he's paying the price for it.

As to why they don't say something about RBs is because the defenders aren't defenseless -- if Sanders wasn't defenseless, Ed can pop him however. That's the key difference and it happens on offense too with blindside blocks which are illegal.

Quote:

But furthermore I'm not even upset about this BECAUSE of the ruling. I'm upset because there is no established marker/statistic than we can turn to in these cases to act as a precedent. It's just sort of like the NFL disciplinary committee can play god and suspend players whenever they feel. Who is going to police their results?

And what if Reed has another incidental helmet hit in our final 5 games... does he miss multiple games leading into a playoff run... does he miss playoff games... does he miss a Super Bowl? This ruling is so much bigger than simply a one game suspension heading into the game with the Chargers. This is the NFL having no layer of transparency behind these types of rulings.

This isn't a village tribe culture where a group of elders can build a huge caveman fire, hum a few times, throw their hands into the air, before making their "judgments"... or at least it shouldn't be. This is the NFL, a professional organization. If you show up late at work there is a clear guideline as to how many times you are allowed to do this before disciplinary action is taken. If you get angry at a ref or player in the NBA and receive a technical foul, there is a process of how many times you're allowed that result before further disciplinary action is drawn.

This instance hear is the NFL thinks its cute and shouldn't have to answer to anyone about their policies because of what it is. They like to act like they're a professional organization, but is there a sports organization as bad with enforcing penalties as the NFL? They're honestly so behind the times in this department.

How hard would it be to institute a "personal foul" stat or a "helmet to helmet" stat where perhaps 10 PF penalties lead to a suspension and 4 H2H fouls lead to a suspension.

With such an understanding at least players can appeal individual penalties included in the formula as opposed to appealing suspensions in general. By the time it reaches the suspension point, nobody- including fans, should be caught off guard with what is about to go down. But instead the NFL is more worried about potentially expanding their game overseas than focusing on their actual product and the flaws within it.

/rant.

I can agree with this -- I do think they need more transparency. Like I said though, I think I remember something about 3 in 3 seasons with Harrison, so I'll have to see if I can go find something to back that up._________________